Sunday, October 4, 2015

Sometimes, it is a very hard thing to put your thoughts in
words. I write a lot and still, I’m sure I don’t always say what I mean to say.
In the age of social media, it seems that we are being watched closer and
scrutinized or even criticized for our random thoughts. Sometimes, just making
a quick observation about something can be taken the wrong way. I’ve sort of
backed away from constant updates and posts.

I don’t always agree with my friends on facebook. People are
often very outspoken on issues I often feel very differently about. I don’t get
into debates in these cases. I have “unfriended” people who continually offend
me with some kind of narrow-minded obsession.

I’ve had cancer in the past few years. I’ve gone through
financial troubles in the past ten years. I’ve gone through some personal
things and somehow made it so far. I’ve had to face deaths, some family members
had some major health scares and I’ve had to make some big decisions in
business. I’m sure I’ve done a few things right and a few things wrong. I
managed to secure the old home place for my family. I fixed up the old house a
little and it’s even good enough to live in.

We’ve all made mistakes. I’ve made my share. Each time, I was
trying to do the right thing but sometimes, the results were not what I expected.
I’m not foolish enough to imagine I am finally done with making mistakes.

I’ve really been soul searching for about two years. I’ve
changed. I’m growing. I see God in a different way. I see some loved ones in
different ways. I took some people off of wobbly pedestals and I’ve tried not
to put anyone else upon one. I’m beginning to accept my own mortality. In terms
of years, I have more behind than before me. But as for quality, I may have the
best ahead.

I haven’t said a lot about Susan. I probably won’t say a lot
about her for a while. I’d rather tell this story in retrospect, but I will say
that I adore her. She is a very good woman. I’ve looked back over her life
while sharing mine with her. Many nights, we’ve sat on Grandma’s glider and we’ve
talked for hours. Her story is a lot different than mine. I’ve listened closely
for hints of bitterness. She was in love twice before; she has even been
happily married twice before. With both husbands, terminal cancer shortened
their lives and shortened her time with them, but instead of dwelling on the
pain of having to say goodbye to these good men, she talks about how blessed
she was to have them in her life. “I could cry because I lost them or smile
because I had them.” She says, and it’s not just words. She lives this and she
really is grateful in areas where some people might not be. She has taught me a
lot.

I fell in love with Susan on our second date. It was Valentine’s
Day this year. For us, it wasn’t a romantic night .We went to Dave Poe’s
Barbeque and I didn’t even take her any flowers. There were no fireworks that
night. It was quiet in her house. We went out to the sun room and she said, “Sit
there,” pointing to a recliner, “It was Danny’s chair. You’ll like it.”

She leaned back on a chase lounge across the room. “This is
my place.” She said, “I like to just come out here to think.”

We talked a while. She told me all about her new grandson,
her daughter, her son-in-law and how proud her first husband would be if he
could see what kind of mother his daughter has become. We talked about my life
too. I told her about my family and some of my struggles through the years.

In between our conversations, something happened in me. I somehow
knew this person. I didn’t feel like I was on a second date. I felt like I was
with someone I had known and loved all my life. I was completely at ease. In
that moment, I realized I could never be without her. And that’s how it
happened for me.

Eight months later, we are getting married; today in fact.
In these eight months, I’ve only felt what I felt that night. I’m at ease. She
was right; I do like Danny’s chair.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Trying to take it apart; to defuse it. I want to see what
wires I can cut without making it go off.

I heard someone say, “If I hadn’t
believed it, I wouldn’t have seen it.”

This is true of the color blue and
it’s just as true of me and you. I think the thing we refer to as God is the
same thing we refer to as love and that’s just the same as life. All of this is
synonymous. We cannot take love out of it. What is happening, as I write with
this keyboard and this computer, is God speaking but completely through the
thing I think of as me. All expression is inspired. I have got it all wrong
when I think that there is a brain in my head that instructs my hands and eyes
to put down in writing what it thinks. The truth is that there is a much bigger
brain which tells my brain to tell my hands to do what they do. The continuity
of it all is liberating. My hands cannot live without me, but I can live
without my hands. I am sure I would not like to lose my hands because they seem
to make my life easier. But imagine how devastated my hands would be if they
lost me. They’d cease. They’d no longer have any kind of life in them. I could
plant them in a garden and they’d eventually fade forever from the planet. Even
the bones of my hands would eventually turn to dust. Suppose I could live a
thousand years beyond my hands. And suppose, within those years, I never grew
more hands. Would I be less alive?

This is how God sees me and my
beloved brain. “Oh you precious boy; you think you are doing this independent
of me. That’s cute.” He might say.

But the thing beyond and greater
than myself will be here when I am cut off from this world as an individual.

An indeterminate hypothesis is
often referred to as religion and religions want to have the last word. They
are there to fill in the gaps left by logic and science. However, if it is what
we use to fill in the gaps, there is a very good chance we are wrong. This can
be seen clearly by looking back over the centuries and the religions imposed
upon each generation.

I’d personally like to remove the
fillers and let science fill in the gaps; let the religions fail and then
reintroduce religions whenever science fixes a place for them.

In my experience, we’ve only used
God as an answer when we had no other answer. We came up with a theory about
how the planet got people on it and then came science with a much better
answer. By trying to establish God as an engineer, we’ve taken away His
credentials. He never put “Engineer” on His own résumé.

If we had left God alone with His
poetry, He would have been recognized for it by now, but by insisting that He
is a Universe Builder instead, no one is willing to hear His poetry now. They
think He said that He made the universe the way Al Gore said he developed the
internet.

If I tell you that I made Mt
Everest, you would likely not hear me if I say, “You are beautiful and I do
love you.”

You’d still be thinking about my
claim. You’d want me to go away.

The same thing might happen if one
of my friends tell you that they know me. “He is good. He made Mt Everest and
he is just a loving person. I know he made Mt Everest because he said so.”

Then you happen to meet me and
you’ve already got this idea about me. But maybe I never said that to my friend.
Perhaps my friend thought it would impress you if he said all that about Mt
Everest and then you’d want to meet me more. But it doesn’t work that way.